Yuga Labs Faces Accusations of IP Theft Over Trademark of BAYC Wolf Skull Logo

Yuga Labs, The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creator, has found itself in the middle of another controversy. This time, the company has been accused of IP theft for allegedly illegally trademarking its BAKC wolf skull logo. Reportedly, Easy Drawing Tutorial, a company focusing on drawing tutorials for children, originally released the logo in April 2021. 

Here’s all you need to know about the IP theft allegations against Yuga Labs:

Yuga Labs accused of IP theft: What happened?

BAYC’s Bored Ape Kennel Club collection, launched on June 17, 2021, features a wolf skull on its logo. On November 15, 2021, Yuga Labs applied to trademark the logo. However, the logo has a striking resemblance to the wolf skull drawing by Easy Drawing Tutorial. In fact, the company posted an image of the drawing on Twitter, three months before Yuga Labs released BAKC. 

The similarity was first spotted by the Twitter user, Colombo. Taking notice of the tweet, the drawing’s original creator, Easy Drawing Tutorial responded:

“Thanks for bringing this up @Jdotcolombo. @yugalabs doesn’t have a license to the wolf skull drawing. The intellectual property rights for the drawing belong to Easy Drawing Guides as it’s our original drawing and protected by our Terms and Conditions.”

Yuga Labs to change the BAKC logo

As Colombo’s tweet from February 17 started getting attention, Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano released a statement the following day. In a tweet, Solano said that the claims were “news” to the team. The team has also reached out to the freelancer who created the logo, as well as Easy Drawing Tutorial.

“We’ll be changing the logo and updating it on our site / ask marketplaces to change as well,” Solano added. “This collection was meant from the start to be about raising money for charity and I’m proud of the fact that BAKC raised over $1m for animal charities.”